Decent enclosure for 2x4TB WD Reds?

[adonis3k]

Hi guys,

have 2 WD Red 4TB drives, what is the best enclosure to use these with my Mac Mini? does it matter if its USB 2/3 as I don't think the drives are fast enough?

Thanks

 

[simsaladimbamba]

USB 2.0 offers a maximum of 40 MB/s read or write bandwidth, the 4 TB RED drives offer at least twice of that with their 110 MB/s read and write speeds, thus USB 3.0 is the better solution.

I do not have any recommendation for two drive bays, as I have all my drives internally and in one (soon there will be a second) quad drive bay from Fantec, but I also have around 20 HDDs.

That HDD bay from Fantec supports 4 TB HDDs and if you ever want another HDD or even two, you can easily add them to that case. It is also quite quiet at the lowest fan speed setting, quieter than my Mac with its custom hardware.

 

[adonis3k]

Thanks mate, will have a look at them

 

[COrocket]

Are u running RAID0, RAID1, or JBOD? If one of the latter two, u could look at a NAS enclosure using gigabit Ethernet as well.

 

[adonis3k]

JBOD for media

 

[matreya]

JBOD for media

I have two of these, they are more expensive because they are thunderbolt enabled as well as USB3..

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/METB7DK0GB/

 

[hfg]

I have two of these, they are more expensive because they are thunderbolt enabled as well as USB3..

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/METB7DK0GB/

I like that one as well ... however, they also have less expensive 2-drive multi-RAID enclosures with USB 3.0, Firewire 800, and eSATA interfaces.

The one linked has the latest chipset with some nice features and seems to be quite fast.

 

[matreya]

I like that one as well ... however, they also have less expensive 2-drive multi-RAID enclosures with USB 3.0, Firewire 800, and eSATA interfaces.

The one linked has the latest chipset with some nice features and seems to be quite fast.

The Guardian Max enclosures don't offer JBOD mode except for Firewire connections...

 

[hfg]

The Guardian Max enclosures don't offer JBOD mode except for Firewire connections...

That is unfortunately correct ... I missed the OP's note on JBOD ... sorry.

Ironically, I just discovered that fact yesterday myself with my Guardian MAXimus ... thought it wasn't working ... then I read the manual. 🙄

I was performing some tests to try to determine why my unit performed so poorly in RAID-0 when on USB 3.0, when it does well in RAID-1.